Eliav Shochetman was born in Haifa in 1941. In 1965 he completed a bachelor’s degree in law at the Hebrew University, continuing to a master’s degree and completing his doctorate in 1976. In 1979 Shochetman joined the Faculty of Law as a lecturer, and over the years he also served as head of the Institute for the Study of Jewish Law.
Prof. Shochetman specializes in Jewish law, laws of personal status, and procedural and evidential rules in the rabbinical courts. His research achievements include editing a key to the responsa of the Jewish sages of Germany, France, and Italy and a key to the Tor and Beit Yosef (two medieval Halachic works).
Shochetman is also one of the founders of the Institute for Training Women Rabbinical Pleaders, which has created a revolution in the Israeli legal world in the context of gender equality in the representation of litigants in the rabbinical court. Prof. Shochetman was awarded an “Emet” (Art-Science-Culture) prize in the Jewish law category in 2011.